Bringing Magic Back To Christmas: My Daughter’s First

Think back to when you were a child. The thrill of the Christmas. The lights, the music, the smell of cookies baking or that first sip of hot cocoa (the kind with tiny marshmallows of course). If you’re anything like I was, you lived for it. It was the time of year when anything was possible. You knew Santa was coming, and you could hardly contain yourself.

Fast forward a few years and you’ve probably reached that time in your life when you understood Santa wasn’t real. Santa, the reason for all that is magical around the holidays just went POOF! Right before your eyes. Suddenly the lights don’t seem as bright, the music not as cheery, the cookies don’t smell as good and the hot cocoa isn’t quite right.

I spent more years in that second stage than the first. Needless to say it’s disappointing. Sure, I loved buying gifts for my family and friends. Seeing the joy on their faces as they tore the wrapping, and making memories with my loved ones. But the magic was always missing, that was, until my daughter.

She may not yet understand, but I catch glimpses of what’s to come. She loves the lights, the music and she loves having her family around her. Her father and I have already discussed how we’ll handle Christmas in the future. What our new traditions as a family might be. Will we leave cookies for Santa? Carrots for the reindeer? Will our daughter get to sneak a present on Christmas Eve?

This Christmas she’ll be just shy of a year. So while she may not understand Santa and Rudolph, or gifts, what matters is that she will. In the coming years she will come to feel that magic that I once felt and because of that, I feel it all over again.